


No Choice At All

by Spikedluv



Category: Blood Books - Tanya Huff, Blood-Smoke Series - Tanya Huff
Genre: Community: smallfandomfest, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-18
Updated: 2012-06-18
Packaged: 2017-11-08 01:26:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/437602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spikedluv/pseuds/Spikedluv
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Henry is forced to choose between Tony and Vicki, it’s really no choice at all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Choice At All

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Round 11 of Small Fandoms Fest using the prompt: Blood and Smoke Series, Henry/Tony, Henry has to choose between Tony and Vicki.
> 
> Written: June 18, 2012

Henry sat on the couch watching Vicki pace the length of his living room, as she’d been doing for the last several minutes. He crossed one leg over the other and pressed the crease ironed into his slacks between thumb and forefinger as if he could make it even sharper. Vicki was agitated, and Henry didn’t need to be a clairvoyant to know what was bothering her. She was usually direct and had no problem telling Henry what was on her mind, but this was a touchy issue. Rather than tact, Henry knew that she just didn’t know where to begin the conversation they needed to have. Henry decided to broach the subject himself, or they’d be there all night.

“I gave you that key for emergencies,” Henry said calmly, making the opening gambit.

“It _was_ an emergency!” Vicki said. “You weren’t answering your phone and I thought you might be . . . . Oh, god.” Vicki covered her eyes with both hands, as if she could make herself forget what she’d seen through sheer force of will alone.

“Look,” Vicki said, lowering her hands and trying again. “Who you sleep with is none of my business.”

“Agreed,” Henry said evenly, drawing a glare from Vicki, which he ignored. He and Vicki weren’t exclusive, and he knew better than to push her to choose between himself and Michael Celluci. But somehow he thought Vicki might be planning to play the ‘do as I say, not as I do’ card when it came to who Henry slept with.

“But seriously, Henry,” she went on. “Tony? He’s practically a _child_!”

Henry raised an eyebrow. He’d bet his favorite sweater that Vicki wasn’t stupid enough to say that in front of Tony. (Then again, in the state she was in, she just might be.) “He’s twenty years old,” Henry reminded her.

Having spent five years living on the streets of Toronto, Henry doubted that Tony’s childhood had lasted past his fourteenth year (if he’d had one at all), but he didn’t bother saying that. Logically Vicki knew it, but she was thinking with her emotions rather than her head right now.

“And you’re 450 years old!” Vicki retorted.

“Yes,” Henry said, holding firmly to the reins of his temper, “and to someone of my advanced age you’re not much older than Tony.”

It appeared that Vicki was going to say something in response, but she stopped herself and took a breath. “Okay, that’s not really the issue anyway. It’s just . . . it’s Tony! I feel like . . . .”

Henry knew how Vicki felt. She’d found Tony on the streets, arrested him for hustling a few times, befriended him, bought him hot meals, got information from him – theirs was a complicated relationship, but there was no doubt that Vicki cared about Tony. He said as much.

“Yes, I do,” Vicki admitted, which Henry knew was a difficult thing for her to do. “But it’s more than that. It just feels . . . wrong. I feel kind of ridiculous for saying this, but it feels kind of . . . incestuous . . . both of us sleeping with you.” She refused to look at Henry when she finished speaking.

“You do realize that you’re not actually _related_ to Tony,” Henry said.

Vicki’s head came up at that. “Yes, Henry, I do know that. It doesn’t actually change how I feel about . . . the situation.” She sighed. “It’s creepy.”

Henry raised an eyebrow. “You occasionally share a bed with a vampire, and you find _this_ ‘creepy’?”

“I watched him grow up, I . . . .”

“You introduced him to me,” Henry cut in. For which he would always be grateful. Not only had Tony’s blood saved his life, but having Tony be a part of his life had probably saved his sanity. When Henry met Vicki he’d been looking for someone to share every part of himself with, someone he could trust with the knowledge that he was a vampire. Vicki had come into his life just when he needed someone like her, and then she’d given him Tony, though she still didn’t realize the full impact of the gesture.

“Yes, I recall that, Henry. And I know that you feed from him, and I know that you and he have formed a friendship. And I have no problem with that.”

Henry knew that statement for the lie it was, but he didn’t call Vicki on it. Henry had helped Tony find a job, an apartment – he’d gotten Tony off the streets and Vicki couldn’t forget that Henry had so easily managed something she’d been unable to do in the four years she’d known Tony. He said nothing, though, because he figured that Vicki was lying to herself as much as to him. Henry let her have the lie.

“What is it that you want, Vicki?” Henry said, getting them right to the point.

Vicki looked the slightest bit guilty, but she pushed her shoulders back and said, “You can’t have us both. I’m sorry, Henry, but I can’t . . . I can’t continue with our physical relationship if you keep . . . seeing Tony.”

Henry wasn’t surprised by the ultimatum – had been expecting it, really, since the moment Vicki had walked into Henry’s bedroom uninvited and seen him in bed with Tony. He was just glad that Vicki had left without saying anything, and that Tony yet remained unaware that they’d been observed together. Still, the irony of Vicki’s request was not lost on him.

“Think for a moment,” Henry said as calmly as he could manage, “how you’d feel, how you’d _react_ *, if I asked you to choose between myself and Celluci.”

“That’s different,” Vicki said immediately. “You and Mike don’t have a prior relationship that makes the situation . . . uncomfortable.”

Vicki was wrong if she thought that either of them were comfortable sharing her – they were just unwilling to rock the boat and lose her to the other completely.

“Do you expect an immediate answer?” Henry asked.

“No, of course not,” Vicki said, the surprise in her tone telling Henry that she had in fact expected him to have an answer for her right away. “Take your time to consider it.”

“Thank you,” Henry said wryly. “I appreciate that.”

“Henry . . . .”

Henry held up his hand to stop her. “Two questions. If I choose Tony, will you and I still remain friends and . . . business associates?”

Vicki swallowed hard, as if she’d never really expected Henry to contemplate that choice. “Yes, of course,” she said. “I would not want to lose your friendship, Henry.”

Henry nodded. “And if I choose you, would you expect me to stop feeding from Tony, as well?”

This one was much harder, he could see. Before Vicki had realized the full extent of his relationship with Tony she’d been content (for the most part) to have sex with Henry while he occasionally fed from Tony. Now that she knew of the physical relationship between Henry and Tony, any such contact might make her feel uncomfortable.

Finally Vicki spoke. “I don’t want Tony to lose your friendship, either. Nor you, his.”

It didn’t directly answer the question, but it would have to do.

Henry nodded. “I’ll let you know what I decide, then.”

It took a moment for Vicki to recognize it as a dismissal. “Fine,” she said tersely.

Henry listened to the door close sharply behind her, to the elevator carry her down to the first floor. He stopped listening only when he could no longer hear the beat of her heart. He still had work to do that night – he needed to write at least a thousand words if he wanted to keep to the schedule he’d set for himself – but Henry wasn’t sure he could get his mind back on the tale of Lady Miranda and the dreaded nobleman Lord Blake, whom she was being forced to wed in order to save her family’s estates.

Henry refused to think any further on Vicki’s ultimatum right then, and instead forced himself to consider Miranda’s situation. He’d mapped out the next three scenes in his head (including one that hadn’t been in the original outline he’d drawn up), before he heard the familiar heart beat. Henry’s mood lightened when he heard Tony singing along to the cassette in his Walkman, and he was smiling by the time Tony unlocked the door and stepped into the apartment.

“Good evening,” Henry greeted him.

Tony paused a moment before dropping his bag onto the floor beside the door. “Hey.”

Henry raised an eyebrow at the blatant breach of his house rules, but Tony just grinned in response and kicked off his sneakers to join the bag. “I figured you’d be in the office writing,” he said as he crossed the floor to where Henry lounged on the couch.

“I was, but I had company,” Henry said easily.

“Vicki?” Tony hesitated, then sat on the couch. “Am I interrupting?” he asked, looking around the condo as if he might spot her.

“Vicki left a while ago,” Henry said lightly. “And in any case, you wouldn’t be interrupting.”

Tony gave Henry a sly smile. “Not even if you were doing the nasty?”

Henry raised an eyebrow, but otherwise refused to be baited. “The nasty?”

“I slept with a man and his wife once. She wanted me to eat her out while she watched him fuck me. Really turned her on, I guess.”

Henry gave no outward indication of the anger that blossomed inside him – the need to kill anyone that had ever hurt Tony. “Are you trying to shock me?” he said calmly.

Tony shrugged. “You’re kind of hard to shock.”

“And yet you keep trying.”

Tony smiled, a real one. “One day I’ll succeed.”

“I’ve lived for a very long time,” Henry said. “I’ve seen, and done, a lot of things. It will be very difficult for you to shock me.”

“A challenge?” Tony said, sounding intrigued.

Which could only bode ill for Henry. He changed the subject. “How’d school go?”

Tony groaned and fell back onto the couch dramatically. “It’s _school_ ,” he said, as if that said everything that needed saying on the matter.

It hadn’t been as difficult as Henry’d thought it might be to convince Tony to get his GED, but that didn’t mean Tony was fond of school.

“Homework?” Henry asked.

“I already did it,” Tony said. At Henry’s look he explained, “I had to stop by the library for a book for class, so I did it there.”

Henry checked the clock – it was later than he’d realized, though sunrise was still many hours away.

“Do you have plans for the rest of the evening?” Henry asked, his own body taking note of Tony’s body splayed out across the other end of the couch.

“Are you hungry?” Tony asked easily, no hesitation in his voice or body language.

“Yes,” Henry said, his gaze mapping Tony’s body. He shook his head slightly when Tony held up his wrist, silently asking Henry if that was what he wanted. “Come here,” Henry commanded.

Tony rolled to his knees with the ease of youth and crawled over Henry until he straddled Henry’s lap. He cradled Henry’s face in his hands and lowered his head until their lips touched. Henry enjoyed kissing – he was a sensual creature – but when they’d first met Tony had been skittish about it. “I don’t kiss,” he’d said, sounding equal parts determined and apologetic.

“I’m not a John,” Henry had growled, but he hadn’t pressed it. Not right then. He’d latched onto Tony’s throat where the surge of blood through Tony’s body was temptingly near the surface. He pressed his tongue to the pulse point, then suckled the spot, leaving his first mark on Tony. He dragged his lips and tongue down Tony’s body, kissing every inch of Tony he could reach before returning his mouth to Tony’s, licking across his lips.

Lost to passion Tony had turned his face into it, reaching for Henry’s mouth. He welcomed Henry’s tongue between his lips, and when their tongues met for the first time he made the sweetest sound Henry could remember hearing, part pleasure, and part surprise at that very same pleasure. Tony had very quickly changed his tune and now he was eager to kiss – at least when he was with Henry. And Henry was happy to let Tony kiss his full.

Henry slid his hands up Tony’s back now and parted his lips to Tony’s tongue. The kiss started slow, but not at all tentative – Tony liked to take his time and let the arousal build between them when they came together like this. Probably because the desire his body felt when Henry took his blood was completely out of his control. Henry dropped his hands to Tony’s hips and dragged him in close. Tony made a sound when their groins met, Henry’s hardness pressing against him.

Henry could usually control himself better than this, and he lay the blame for his inability now directly at Vicki’s feet. Her ultimatum had reminded him how often he lost the people he loved – from illness, old age, or violence – but never had he been in the position where he must choose. But not yet. Henry rose to his feet with Tony in his arms and carried him to the bedroom.

Tony laughed happily – a sound Henry only rarely got to hear, though it was becoming more frequent – and wrapped his legs around Henry’s hips. “In a hurry?”

“No,” Henry said as he dumped Tony onto the mattress. He cupped Tony between his legs and reveled in the whimper his touch elicited. “I’m going to take my time with you tonight.”

~*~*~*~

Henry lay beside a sleeping Tony. Not touching him, because he didn’t want to wake him, merely studying him. Light brown hair that had grown too long because Tony couldn’t be bothered to get it cut. Henry couldn’t resist reaching out to brush the strands away from Tony’s eyes. Normally a clear, pale blue, there were now dark circles around them because Tony insisted on keeping his full-time job while he took the necessary classes at night to get his GED.

Henry had offered to support Tony while he got his diploma, had even offered to let Tony share his condo, but Tony had refused both offers, even though he spent most nights in Henry’s bed anyway. It had been important to Tony to make it on his own – he felt that he’d already accepted enough of Henry’s help.

Tony made a sound when Henry touched his hair, but he only snuggled more deeply into the pillows, and fell more deeply into sleep. Henry reached out to pull up the sheet over Tony’s shoulders and his gaze fell on the scars from where Tony had been cut with a sharp knife. Henry gently traced the scars with the tips of his fingers and remembered the night he’d finally found those responsible for leaving them on Tony’s skin.

He hadn’t killed them – but, oh, how he’d wanted to. Wanted to tear them apart, limb from limb, rip out their throats and leave them for the carrion birds. Henry hadn’t, but not because he didn’t do that sort of thing anymore. He hadn’t wanted to see the expression of disappointment on Tony’s face directed at him. He’d had to force down the demon that wanted to rend and kill and force even Tony to its will. But that didn’t mean he hadn’t let it have some fun that night.

Henry shook away those thoughts and pulled up the sheet. In his sleep Tony turned into Henry’s touch. Henry was humbled by the trust Tony showed him, when there were very few to whom Tony gave his trust. It also gladdened Henry’s heart that Tony didn’t fear him. He maintained a healthy respect for the vampire (well, mostly, and when his irreverence passed tolerable levels, Henry reminded him with a growl of dissatisfaction what he was. It worked for a while, anyway), but didn’t fear him.

There was also trust and a lack of fear with Vicki, as well, but there was one thing she could never give Henry, something he needed nearly as much as he needed the blood that kept him alive. The duty to take care of his people had been instilled in him since birth, and the need for it filled Henry yet. Vicki was too strong, too independent to allow Henry, or anyone else, to take care of her. She didn’t need Henry the way Tony needed him. The way Henry needed to be needed.

One day soon Henry expected that Tony would grow into the potential Henry already saw in him. The skill of taking care of himself on the streets would develop into a true independence. Tony would become the man, the person Henry knew he could be. But even after that happened Tony would remain his – his to nurture, his to love, his to care for.

There really was no choice to be made – not now, anyway. She didn’t know it, but Vicki had made the choice for Henry the day she’d brought Tony to him. Vicki had been an oasis in the desert Henry’s life had become – someone with whom he could be himself without the need to hide his true nature – but Tony, well, Tony was his. He might grow up, but they would not grow apart. The choice had been made months ago.

Henry would call Vicki the next night, giving the appearance at least of having had to consider his decision. And he’d make sure she understood that Tony was never to be made aware that he was the reason Henry’s relationship with Vicki changed. Tony would feel guilt where none was warranted, and Henry didn’t want that.

Henry brushed his hand across Tony’s head one last time, and then rose from the bed. He wrapped a silk robe around his naked body instead of taking a shower and getting dressed in the clothes that lay heaped on the floor. His skin smelled like Tony and he wanted to retain the scent for as long as he could. He left Tony sleeping and went to the office, his mind now clear and ready to tackle the matter of Lady Miranda and Lord Blake.

The End


End file.
